am obliged to do." "Do as you please, papa," said Grannonia, "for I am not the one to oppose a single jot of your will." The king hearing this, bid Cola Matteo tell the serpent to come.

The serpent, on receiving the invitation, set out for the palace mounted on a car all of gold, and drawn by four golden elephants. But wherever he came the people fled away in terror, at seeing such a large and frightful serpent thus making his progress through the city: and when he arrived at the palace, the courtiers all turned pale, and trembled like rushes; and even the very scullions did not venture to stay in the place. The king and the queen, too, shut themselves up in a room, and Grannonia alone stood her ground; and though her father and her mother kept crying out to her, "Fly, fly, Grannonia! save yourself, Rienzo '!" she

1 This apparently alludes to the fate of Cola Rienzo (Nicola di Lorenzo), the Roman patriot, which it would appear was become proverbial. In Ireland (and I suppose in Scotland) it is usual to say to a person who has met with misfortune, "You unfortunate Argyle!" evidently alluding to the fate of the Marquesses of Argyle in the seventeenth century. It is curious how popular sayings and rimes will keep up the memory of political events. Blackstone has been praised by Niebuhr for discerning the usages of feudalism in the plays of children; and justly, for nothing is beneath the attention of the true philosopher. I will give an instance of what may be found in nursery rimes. They say to children in Ireland, "I'll tell you a story, Of Johnny Macgory, He went to the wood, And he killed a tory."

These will appear unmeaning to most readers; but perhaps

DRAWN BY W. H. BROOKE, F. S. A., ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY G. BAXTER,

1834.

would not show any signs of fear, but said, "Why do you want me to fly from the husband whom you have given me?" And when the serpent came into the room, he took Grannonia by the waist in his tail, and gave her such a shower of kisses, that the king writhed for all the world like a worm; and I warrant if you had bled him, you would not have got a single drop of blood out of him. The serpent then carried her into another room, and made her fasten the door; and then he shook off his skin on the ground, and became a most beautiful youth, with a head all covered with ringlets of gold, and with eyes that would enchant you; and then embracing the maiden, he gathered the first fruits of his love.

The king, when he saw the serpent going into the room with his daughter, and shutting the door after him, said to his wife, "Heaven be merciful to that poor soul our daughter! for she has become food for that cursed serpent. Beyond doubt he has swallowed her up like the yolk of

they are not so. They refer, in my opinion, to the period after the Scottish colony had been planted in the North of Ireland; and the Irish, being driven from the open country, took refuge in the woods, whence they issued to rob the settlers. Tory is in Irish a robber, probably from the verb toraim, 'to give,' a word of course frequent in the mouth of a plunderer. We have thus in these verses a state of society placed before our eyes; the original native lurking in the woods, and the Scottish colonist, like the Spaniard in America, going out armed a tory-hunting, and killing the miserable aborigine as he would a wolf.

an egg!" He then put his eye to the keyhole, to see what had become of her; but when he saw the exceeding beauty of the youth, and the skin of the serpent that he had left lying on the ground, he gave the door a kick; and they rushed in, and took the skin, and flung it into the fire, and burned it.

"Ah!

When the youth saw this, he cried out, you renegade dogs! you have done for me," and instantly turned himself into a dove, to fly away; but finding that the panes of the window prevented his escape, he butted at them with his head till he broke them, but he cut himself in such a manner that there did not remain a whole spot on his pate.

Grannonia, who thus saw herself at the same moment happy and unhappy, joyful and miserable, rich and poor, tore her face and bewailed her fate, accusing her father and mother of this interruption of pleasure, this poisoning of sweets, this overthrow of good-fortune; and they excused themselves by declaring that they had not intended any evil. She then kept herself quiet till Night came forth to illuminate the catafalque of the skies for the funeral pomp of the Sun; and when she saw all in bed, she took her jewels, which were in a writing-desk, and went out by a back-door, intending to search everywhere till she had found the treasure she had lost.

When she was gone out of the city, and was proceeding, guided by the light of the moon, she